


The Light Peels back the Dark

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano-centric, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Anakin Skywalker is the Chosen One, Angst and Feels, BAMF Ahsoka Tano, BAMF Anakin Skywalker, Bittersweet Ending, Brother-Sister Relationships, Character Death, Embodiment of the Force, Extended Metaphors, Ilum (Star Wars), Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Prophecy, Prophetic Dreams, Prophetic Visions, Protective Ahsoka Tano, Protective Anakin Skywalker, The Dark Side of the Force, The Gathering, The Light Side of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25914013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: The Chosen One's prophecy has a separate meaning when the embodiment of the dark and light side of the force gets involved. The light being a young Togruta by the name of Ahsoka Tano.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 4
Kudos: 80





	The Light Peels back the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly love this because its been in my mind for a while

The moment she is born the village doula exclaims she will be the holiest of high priestesses. The newborn Togruta’s blinding aura noticeable to even those who were not significantly gifted with the force. 

“Or the mightiest of warriors,” a young boy, the seemingly omnipotent child’s older brother suggested blind to the conflict such a thought would begin. A warrior race they’d been referred to by the republic, by the galaxy itself. Although they knew that fact to be true, they were also a people of their surroundings, and more importantly: their honor.

It was almost as if the second the nameless togruta was born the world shifted and the galaxy’s harsh noose fell slack. The tug of war that had begun five years prior had gained a player, one who was holding the other end of the rope and not the middle where another remained.

They had no way of knowing this was due to the birth of the darkside’s vessel and subsequently, the mediator, the chosen one, immediately after. Now several years later, the personification of the light was here before them, wailing from her emergence into the world.

There was a reasoning that varied from sound to not for each option. Not even a day old, power oozing from her small sun orange skin and the potential of using that power for battle already being pressured by hands that had not even held her. Writing her off as a mass weapon of war before she even had a name.

The opposing view being the subjection of a selfless obligation, an isolation to become one with herself and their universe. It was the suicide of her right to choose and follow her dreams. As noble as each take would be, there had always been a choice. The right to pick up a spear, the right to search out enlightenment, the right to build her own path even if it wasn’t one they would follow or agree with.

Not even one with the universe for an hour and her light made those of her pack ponder her potential slavery to them. There was no honor in that, no honor in not letting her choose, potentially no honor in whatever she did when she was grown, and no one knew what to do.

“And why do you think she’d be a warrior?” The mother of the two asked, never looking up from the snivelling togruta in her arms, nearly asleep.

“Her markings are diamond shape, blood diamonds,” the boy explained, the notion absurd but the woman huffed a gentle laugh even though the childish correlation struck her and those around them. Little boys in war they all mused, the mentality the people of Shili tried desperately to rectify as they began to grow. It was easy to laugh at war when you didn’t understand what it was. It was better they learn now, rather than in battle itself.

It was a hard lesson to teach, death had more occurrence than breath in the air. More variables than the direction of the wind and more feeling than stars in the sky.

“The ashla,” heads whipped toward the current high priestess, her mouth agape making the group of togruta bristle.

“The what?” the young girl's father finally spoke.

“Ashla?” the son questioned intrigued, looking back and forth from his newly born sister and the tall togruta draped in ceremonial robes he knew better than to touch.

“I haven’t named her yet,” Lady Tano explained, her fingers petting her daughters soft and plump lekku, a name at the tip of her tongue.

“Not her name, her being,” the woman explained, passing through the threshold of their home and kneeling in front of the mother and her child. A frown crossed the little boy’s face as she reached out, placing her fingers on the little girl's face, a prayer flowing out from under her breath.

A prayer having been said to no one before, and his own lekku grew dark in jealousy only truly understanding her importance in that moment. How their father already wanted her as a warrior when she couldn’t even hold up her head, as the most respected and sacred being of their tribe claimed his little sister was a whole other being.

He didn’t quite understand it but he knew he didn’t like it. So he couldn’t like her, even if something about her deemed her transcendent. Why was she this way and he was not?

“I think I’ll name her Ahsoka,” his mother finally announced, blinking sluggishly but warmly all the same at the infant.

Their father, normally a rather silent yet stern man smiled at the name. Looking proud in a way no one had ever seen before.

“Ahsoka Tano, the Ashla,” the title was heavy with emotion, adoration as it came out of his lips, his chin lifting and pressing his montrals further into the air. Getting onto a knee the man adorned in the teeth of several Akul took her tiny hand in his own giving it a chaste kiss, “You will bring honor to us all.”

* * *

At five and half years old Anakin Skywalker felt the never ending strain diminish, not all the way but enough for his breaths to come in deeper than they ever have before. Something in the air had changed. Something _in him_ changed. There was something new, something he intrinsically wanted to cultivate.

He wanted...no _needed_ to find it. Find who now held the rope in unexperienced weak hands, because the person on the other end brought ire and dreams he wished not to see.

Anakin couldn’t tell if the darkness he was fighting was aware someone eternally bright had joined their close game, or that from then on he’d be holding the light painfully tight until the person on the end could do it themself.

Sand bristled in his socks making his face twitch in annoyance, a small part of his brain using that irritation to inform him that the feeling would be a constant. He’d be a constant. He was meant to ensure a constant. A constant between the light and the dark, a problem because as he teetered in the middle, he already wanted the newcomer to win, even if that meant he fell.

* * *

Obi-Wan listened eagerly as his master finally told him the rest of the prophecy, everyone in the temple seemed to be lighter than air. The Ashla had been born and the lightside would prevail.

“As you know the Jedi have been waiting for the chosen one, the one prophesized to bring balance to the force by destroying the Sith. Only recently we’ve uncovered there could be more. Beings of the force, the Chosen one’s involvement with these beings is yet to be discovered.”

“You mean to tell me the dark and light side of the force…”

“Yes, and five years ago when the pull of the darkside became stronger is when their representative came to be. And today padawan mine, the light has been born,”

“What about the chosen one?”

“That we do not know, now I believe the council has an assignment for us. One having to do with Mandalore.”

* * *

Ahsoka is three years old, eyes huge and smile wide even as they overrun her with varying tasks in the hopes of finding out her path to honor. So far the results continue to pile in the favor of her becoming a warrior.

A fact that delighted her father while upsetting her brother who still looked at her with nothing more than disdain. Welts from branches often blistered on her arms from his rough treatment but she was quickly showing promise in beating him in a fight.

Delighting her father further was her use of the force, she was exceptionally grand when she played with her dolls and made them fly. When she saved him from a falling tree by slowing it enough that he could get out of the way. She'd fallen on her knees after, exhausted from the struggle of doing it. The work ethic alone only making him want to craft her a weapon of the highest caliber.

Her mother and the high priestess were obviously taken aback by her prowess, but it did not stop their annoyance when the girl could not sit still and meditate. When she wouldn’t put down her tooka doll, and wouldn’t conform to the tranquility she was expected. The little girl was an open book, a confident gleaming book that needed to wisen up. 

“In time,” they repeated to her again and again, “In time,” words that little Ahsoka Tano had both begun to fear and admire. On some nights the words felt the same to her as her father's voice to her after a nightmare, assuring that everything would be okay, the tide would go down.

Other times it was the sharp pain of anticipation in her gut, the stalking of an Akul one notices while unable to pinpoint its exact location. A harbinger of something important that she may fail at. 

Her thoughts are cut off when a woman who she could easily tell was not a togruta with their lack of lekku and montrals approached. A thick rod-like object that the little girl could mistake for a metal club jangling against her hip.

The item is not what had her toddling back towards her father, it was the suffocating unseeable flume around the woman that had the little girl's stomach rolling in antipathy. Her father sensing her distress picked her up without question, her brother noticing immediately that not even a glance was sent his way, his concern was purely for Ahsoka and not him even when there was a stranger in their midst.

He hated her and they all loved her.

“Who are you?” the little girl couldn’t describe his tone, and if she wasn’t a three year old and had an extensive vocabulary, one would call it sanguineous. All until the woman spoke.

“There’s no need to fear me, I am a jedi,” They knew of the jedi, they’ve heard of other Togruta in different villages going off to join the their order, it was the ultimate honor. The man disregarded the little girl's fear then, and Ahsoka knew as her family, the high priestess, and their neighbors waved her off. They never actually loved her, they loved what she could be, what she could bring them in turn.

And at three years old Ahsoka was more than aware that even though she was hurt, she wanted to help others. Maybe even unhealthily so, because maybe love and need could become the same thing. The woman who Ahsoka was sure wasn’t a jedi didn’t seem to be the person to ask, and she was far too shy to even speak up and ask to go back and gather her tooka doll.

Just days after the youngling had been stolen from her supposed family, Jedi Master Plo Koon felt the remnants of her signature on a small doll, and was immediately weighed down by her supposed induction to the Jedi order.

* * *

Anakin knows as they look at him they wonder if he’ll bring the Ashla to them. How could he? He never had the chance, not while they were at war, not while he could still feel their pull but only because the light grip that wasn’t even on the proverbial rope was resting weakly on his arm, the only actual thing they were doing to help was unintentionally playing on his protective instincts.

Instincts that made him pull hard with the light to keep the darkness from pulling the being into its clutches even when he could tell whoever they were, although not infested with its filth was being oppressed by it all the same. 

Whoever the light was they were fourteen, while the darkness was the same age as himself. It wasn’t as assuring of a thought he tried to make it out to be. He didn’t want to imagine fighting one of the padawans, luckily he didn’t mind fighting someone his own age.

“Sir,” Rex spoke up, catching the general from his thoughts and awkwardly motioning towards his beeping comlink. Shaking himself back into work, Anakin set off to his summons.

* * *

The dark side of the force was strong here and Anakin and Obi-Wan were forced to bite their tongues as they snuck inside. They had no concrete reason for being there, other than whispers and tips that something there was worth their attention.

Anakin uncharacteristically positioned himself behind his former master, something that had Obi-Wan raising his brow but thankfully not saying anything and continuing onward. The force rippled in Anakin's mind, thrumming, trying to display something he couldn’t quite make out. Not until his metaphorical arm was being tugged, the rope swinging and begging him to act.

“Ahsoka get back here,” a shrill voice echoed throughout the halls, a cacophony of footsteps rushing about letting the two Jedi know their cover hadn’t been blown but they were in trouble all the same.

Igniting their sabers, they prepared to be flanked on both sides, nowhere to go, especially not when a young togruta ran around the corner. Both Anakin and Ahsoka’s eyes widened, their long awaited meeting happening all too quickly, especially as she had to stop herself from crashing right into their sabers.

“Ahsoka!” More footsteps followed, and she jumped into gear then, pushing closer as Anakin maneuvered her behind him and against the wall as they were suddenly surrounded on both ends.

Obi-Wan nearly pounced at the men on the left, while Anakin made it easier by simply forcing everyone back. It didn’t mean they were in the clear but everyone in the current hallway was unconscious for now.

The short togruta placed a hand on her personal mediator’s arm, peaking around him to look at his illuminated face.

“They come in different colors?” she asked, actually surprised even though he smirked as if what she’d said was silly while the man across from them frowned.

“Why wouldn’t they?” her nameless protector snarked, turning to actually face the teen. Anakin knew they’d be young, but he hadn’t expected a stick thin togruta who had to crain her head up to meet his gaze. If he was honest, he’d also been expecting a boy. Then again, he was sure it might have been his self-projecting that made him assume that.

“I’ve only seen them in red,” she admitted softly, internally berating herself when the words had his smile faltering.

The green-eyed man across from her seemed more than confused, he’d raised Anakin since he was a young boy, he’d never been this receptive to anyone, let alone a child. In fact Anakin often bemoaned when the padawans were running amuck at the temple.

He’d chalked it up to the boy’s youth when the padawans weren’t very nice to him, but maybe it was just Anakin showing some actual compassion.

It only made sense when another shout echoed, “Ashla!” The two Jedi jumped into action, not having to tell the girl to follow as she ran with them. The togruta carefully avoided the carnage around her, staying far enough back to avoid the swings of the two’s sabers while being close enough that they could assist her if need be.

The residing sith fell and Obi-Wan didn’t wait to contact the council as they headed towards the Resolute, gesturing for the clones to deal with it as he spoke with Master Yoda.

“Thank you,” Ahsoka spoke up before a blond clone approached them, not giving Anakin a chance to respond.

“General,” the man gave the togruta an odd look, but didn’t acknowledge her further. 

“Ahsoka, Rex,” Anakin introduced, stepping past the man and leading her towards the ship.

“Have you met...you know?” Ahsoka questioned, taking a double take at the size of the ship, her montrals ringing as every step came back to her. She was quickly getting overwhelmed and she knew the...general could tell. 

“No,” he informed, suddenly turning on her with worried eyes, “Have you?”

The girl shook her head immediately, she grew up surrounded by the sith, the darkness, and she was eternally grateful she hadn’t met the person on the other end of the rope, she was more than content meeting the middle man who seemingly wanted to work in her favor.

The breath of relief the man let out had them both smiling before the girl was yawning and hugging to herself.

Anakin let her settle in his quarters, wondering if this is what it felt like having a padawan as he gave the sleeping girl one last glance before heading to the briefing room. He knew he wouldn’t like what they came up with, he rarely did.

* * *

Ahsoka had been on her own for longer than she cared to remember, her life on Shili fuzzy, the vaguest of her memory being the revelation of sorrow. Sadly enough, the clearest thing she remembered was a tooka doll.

Scanning the room she was in, the togruta frowned at the tired general haphazardly spread out on the couch. He wasn’t asleep, not quite but she assumed it wouldn’t take long for him to drift off. His holonet show didn’t seem too interesting if his eye roll meant anything.

“So chosen one, you still haven’t told me your name,” the nineteen year old startled up at that, looking perplexed and a little offended.

“You don't know my name?” He was on the holonet all the time! The poster child of the Jedi order and she didn’t know his name. His padaw-no...the Ashla didn’t know his name.

“Nope,” moving to sit on the couch, the girl settled herself so if the man wanted to sleep he could take back his bed.

“Anakin, Anakin Skywalker,” 

“You say like that I’m supposed to be impressed Skyguy,” she teased, his transparency beyond hilarious to her.

“Hey! Watch it snips,” he fake warned, seemingly more awake. 

The girl stuck her tongue out at the nickname, rolling her eyes and not feeling as offended as she normally did when someone insulted her. Then again in her experience it was always some sith calling her a brat or nuisance.

“I’m assuming you Jedi had a discussion with my being here,” she murmured, nervous and fearful because her conundrum on Shili was pounding at the back of her head. 

His jaw clenched and his brow furrowed and she often wondered if he cared or knew that he was so easy to read. Then again he seemed more of the type you sent straight into battle rather than kept behind the scenes.

“They said a few things,” he didn’t want to tell her, and she didn’t let him avoid the subject either with her serious and pointed look. Taking a less than silent gulp, he conceded begrudgingly. 

“They wanted...Want to ask you to join the order.” Her head was already shaking at the notion, she knew it would come up and she had known for years, ingrained it into her brain if she hadn’t actually been born with the understanding that her alliance to an order would be the farthest thing from balance. It was no wonder Anakin, the one who would bring balance to the force was against it as well.

“And?”

The anger surrounding him then made her shoulders push up, the balance slipping out of her favor.

“I won’t let them use you as bait for…” gritting his teeth, Anakin tore his head to the side. 

“Bogan,” she revealed, it was a title she’d heard whispered throughout her life. Always used next to her own, and she physically saw as he took in the name and engrained it for later.

The Ashla also appreciated that not only did he give her an answer, he made her a promise. Even going to far as to mutter under his breath, “I would never let anyone hurt you,”

“You don’t have to promise me that, you’ve already done enough,” it only seemed to upset him further.

“I’m not lying, I won’t let them-”

“I know,” she jumped to assure him as he stood, admitting quietly, “I’m sorry, it’s just when I was...you know...I guess I internalized and ended up worrying that-no one said you had to be honest with me. Not even you.”

He was eerily silent, the air thick and shifting. The teeter unnerving, so much so Ahsoka found herself exuding her thanks to him, and hoping his individuality remained when it came to his use of the force. If the Jedi were seemingly on her side, why didn’t it feel like it? Why could she look at Anakin and the burden on his shoulders and tell they were not what she would stand behind?

Ahsoka had a hunch they were the same as the Sith, looking for supremacy but still under the guise that it was equality. At least the Sith admitted it. But she thought better of voicing those...intuitions. The man in front of her was balance, there was balance in everything, even her but when she was young a voice she couldn’t place had said to her the Ahsla's sense of balance was a little more complex.

But Anakin, Anakin she felt bury his anger, ashamed of it. His repression was likely enforced by the Jedi, only causing more conflict. Prodding at their connection, not bond, examining it until she saw what she’d been blind to. It was worn and brittle, frayed and only kept together by will alone. She’d have to rest again as she was still inexperienced in her art and not used to her power since she never was able to use it.

Reinforcing their tether so he wasn’t relying on will alone Ahsoka wasn’t sorry for outwardly telling him.

“If you’re endlessly devoted to one end, you’ll fall into everything you aren’t. And you won’t survive that,” and knowing he’d promised to protect her, she appealed to that too, “I won’t either.”

The conflict in him thrived, his ignorance the Jedi instilled in him jumping at the defense only to falter knowing she was right. It was okay to indulge so long as you didn’t swim. How could one argue with the embodiment of the light herself?

“I’m sorry they used the light against you,”

Anakin hugged her, and she basked in it as well. Needing it too when her fearful interpretation of their prophecy came to mind. The theory in itself had no backing, not anything more than her empathy, her compassion.

She knew she’d had a brother, one who did not love or care for her. Anakin on the other hand she’d only known for a day had been protecting her and the balance of the force itself before she was even alive.

If anyone was her brother, it was him. Well, that's how she was viewing him, and it seemed like Anakin was viewing her like the sith viewed their apprentices. There was likely a Jedi equivalent. She admittedly didn’t know much about the order, mainly only being allowed to hear insults and who they thought they were, the keepers of the peace. She didn’t think peacekeepers were supposed to resemble soldiers.

How did they view the prophecy? Likely not in the same way she childishly did. 

“Goodnight Anakin,” Ahsoka cut off, and he didn’t complain as he went to bed while Ahsoka reclined on the couch, falling asleep as well.

_If her or Bogan died (she didn’t even know if they could) or simply ceased to exist, would Anakin become their successor?_

* * *

Ahsoka came to realize her suspicions about the order were correct and they hadn’t even been on Coruscant for five minutes. She stayed near Anakin’s side, but wasn’t as composed as the two Jedi as she admired the architecture.

The swell of information and experience in these past twenty four hours likely made her look her age. Anakin’s fond look at her curiosity allowed her to continue her dawdling without interruption or fear of immodesty. Her shields were up high, unbelievably so. The sith she’d been passed around by like a cruel fostering system were negligent but all too diligent in teaching her to hide away. As they continued down the hall she saw several looks sent her way, but they weren’t in astonishment, more of surprise because they immediately looked back at Anakin in turn.

“Finally got a padawan I see,” a nameless cloaked man hummed, not giving Anakin the chance to dispute it so he simply nodded and they carried on their way. Obi-Wan, she’d come to learn had been Anakin’s master when he was a padawan. Currently he was studying Anakin in the same way she was studying the temple’s architecture. 

Not oblivious to his former masters stare Anakin explained, “It’s better they think that than the truth,” there was no telling how anyone, even someone as esteemed as a Jedi would react to the genuine Ashla. Anakin wasn’t trying to continuously overwhelm the fourteen year old girl either, he’d been in her shoes before and it was more than obvious she appreciated his effort to keep her from being gawked at. 

Another Jedi crossed the halls, their smile and the two hilts on their hips gaining her attention. Many years ago she’d been in the presence of a sith wielding two sabers as well, and all the same something about the image had always felt right to her. 

Steering herself back to her ‘masters’ side, Ahsoka less than quietly proposed, “Will I get my own sabers?”

“Oh,” Anakin exclaimed in surprise, having not thought about her wielding one, or even what color she would receive.

“Sabers?” Obi-Wan asked, having also been trained to wield two. In fact as he looked at the girl, he could see her duel wielding with a reverse grip as easily as he could watch the setting of the sun.

The girl nodded shyly, not knowing much about him and his slightly intimidating stance. 

Still feeling the need to explain, “It just feels right, I...um don’t know how to explain it-”

“There’s no need young one,” Unclipping his saber, the man twisted it in his hands, showing it to the girl who watched in awe. _“An elegant weapon for a more civilized time. The weapon of a jedi knight.”_

“So I have to be a Jedi to get my own?” she questioned hesitantly, making the man shake his head begrudgingly.

“A lightsaber is constructed with what is called a kyber crystal. The force calls us to our crystal, or crystals,” he amended.

The togruta took in the information eagerly, a moment spurring between the two that Anakin watched, unable to distinguish the feelings it brought him. His master and his padawan...Obi-wan’s grand padawan. No...no she’s not his padawan, he had to remind himself that even as he knew his attachment wouldn’t be slowed or snuffed out. 

“And the color?” she added, earning quizzical looks from them both. What color would this...being receive? Would the crystals or the force choose? Would she be able to determine it with her will alone? 

Master Kenobi opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out, and she filled the silence easily with a lighthearted mock.

“You don’t know,”

“I’m afraid not,” he admitted with a embarrassed smile. 

The moment abruptly ended when they reached the door, Ahsoka’s breath catching in her throat when the mere presence in the room before her tried latching on. When Ahsoka tried to back away from those ominous doors, she only ended up hitting Anakin’s chest and even he couldn’t assure her that everything would be okay because the doors had opened.

* * *

A consultant, a consultant masked as a padawan, to be trained by Anakin Skywalker. They’d initially tried to sequester her as well, the young woman’s schedule and life being thrown around, eventually bringing her to meet Anakin’s secret wife and the Queen of Naboo.

* * *

Anakin looked down at his pseudo padawan, bundled up to help stave off the cold. He knew she had to enter the cave alone, knew it would test her in the way it tested everyone else. It was possible that she could be called to any crystal, it was seemingly a momentous occasion that he didn’t want to miss nor was he allowed to attend.

“You’ll do fine,” he assured, watching as she passed the threshold and began her journey inside. Ahsoka passed throughout the glimmering fractals leading her deeper, none making themselves known or even truly catching her eye. Maybe Anakin had been right, maybe she could take any.

Reaching out towards a crystal, a bright flash and crash of pain overcame her. Blood painting the ice and the sharp crystal before her. Her palm punctured and the warmth of her wound twanging, the blood stinging her skin as it began to freeze.

A mechanic breathing assaulted her freezing montrals, _“You abandoned me. You failed me. Do you know what I’ve become?”_ A pressure on her throat had the girl reeling back, tears and a torrent of anger beating her down and sending her into a mindless sprint.

The rope around her didn’t feel real, not as she reached for it, trying desperately to grab her end and pull. Seemingly alone and without a middle ground, the mediator wasn’t there, Anakin wasn’t there.

Falling into the piercing snow, a cloaked figure both in person and in the force looked down at her. He was holding the rope and pulling her closer and closer to the frozen river running below.

“ _You will die,”_ the machine announced, lifting a gloved hand and procuring a blood red saber before plunging it into the ice below. The shock had her screams warble through the chilled water as she fell in, body thrashing frantically, her eyes finally catching two crystals deep beneath the surface.

The Ahsla fought the instinct to inhale as her scrapped hands plucked the two crystals from where they were lodged at the bottom of the lake. Wading through the water as her consciousness threatened to sink her.

 _“You will never see your future if you remain his student,”_ her own anguished voice came at her as she broke through the surface and pulled herself from the icy water in a fit of tears. Her sharp breaths crystalised the inside of her throat, a fit of coughs strong enough to crack the ice beneath her further threatening to send her under once more. 

Giving a tug, Ahsoka reached out to the chosen one before her eyes shut.

* * *

Gatherings differed for every Jedi, the potential for danger high or nonexistent. Anakin’s own had gone smoother than he or Obi-Wan expected, apparently Obi-Wan’s had gone less so. His shoulder having been dislocated when he’d acquired his own.

The task also didn’t have a time limit, it could take Ahsoka a minute or it could take her an hour. A strong sense of foreboding tugged at him and he held the rope tight in turn. His padawan’s spike of fear sending him to his feet. The entrance of the cave warding him off, his interference could hurt her, could sully her journey and the effects could be disastrous. Some Jedi even surmised that their kyber crystal might not ever be found again.

So Anakin stood in the entrance, the snow dusting his shoulders and the crystals in front of him reflecting the ice in the air. It was only the second the light he knew as Ahsoka tugged him nearly off his feet that he sprinted inside. Using both the displaced snow on the ground and their new budding bond to search her out. Her blood being what he finds first.

The fear he feels he knows is his own.

Chasing the trail of crimson, Anakin nearly cries out her name when he finds her. Her body not even shaking, her clothes freezing from their apparent run in with water. The chosen one knew she was alive, could feel it and he was more than determined to keep her that way as he reached out with the force to hold the cracked ice beneath them together while lifting her into his arms.

As he ran from the Ilum cave Anakin wasn’t sure if the two white crystals in her clenched bleeding hand were a trick of the light or not. Getting a white crystal from the getgo was unheard of. Then again, the two of them were living deities. Nothing they did had to make sense.

* * *

Obi-Wan had been correct in his assumption that she’d be proficient in the Ataru-Shien reverse grip, while Anakin’s suggestion of Jar’Kai had also proven to be fruitful. Ahsoka took to wielding her blinding sabers with more gusto than an excited youngling.

Many of the Jedi masters would appear now and again to watch, even some other padawans were caught staring with varying reactions. Ahsoka Tano, padawan to the chosen one, wielding two seemingly unattainable white sabers. 

If only they knew. 

* * *

As the years passed the rope had been knotting, fraying, and slipping as the Jedi and the Sith chipped at her older brother. Nightmares were plaguing them both and when Ahsoka tried to pry he sent her away. They are at war and the rope was slipping. 

_“There’s a wildness in you little one...You will never see your future if you remain his student,”_

She’s sixteen years old when she leaves the order, her last message to her supposed master being, “This isn’t about you. I can’t stay here any longer, not now,” the darkside was growing, something or someone was working with the darkside, whether it was Bogan himself or not she didn’t know.

* * *

A year passes and both Bail Organa and Bo Katan deem her Fulcrum. It is her, a sith by the name of Darth Maul, and the separate rebellion from the senate and Jedi that figure out and announce to the galaxy that Senator Palpatine is not who he seems.

There is a battle approaching, all of the Jedi and all of the Sith. As many clones they could ‘fix’ were preparing for the call to arms and the found out Darth Sidious replied to their call with the promise of the dark side.

Ahsoka still ponders her theory as she is presented with armor made of something her pained memory insists is honor.

* * *

The light had been dimming, corruption seemingly killing her, if not killing her it was certainly mutilating her spirit. Their training bond had long since disappeared but their rope would always remain, but his presence in the middle was so erratic or absent she didn’t know if he felt her agony. 

He was caught up in his own.

* * *

Anakin led the troops with a snarl on his face, The phantom menace, his old mentor was being carried on a throne, laughing almost maniacally with his fingers dancing with electricity. 

The Chosen one ignites his saber and the sound of a hundred more follow, though he didn’t charge, not when a duel wielding man steps out from behind the chancellor, red and purple gleaming on his armor and covered face. It is he who holds the other end of the rope, the one who he’s been playing with from the start. 

“The chosen one,” the other man chuckled before a flat monotone followed the quick show of amusement, “Maybe you can answer a question for me then. Where is the Ashla?”

Anakin’s answer is a fury of slashes from his saber and the thousands of screams of warriors fighting to the death once and for all.

“You can still be my apprentice, it is your destiny,” Palpatine offers Anakin, grinning as he actually struggles against Bogan, the phantom is all too excited but it’s clear to Anakin that the man he’s fighting has ulterior motives. He berates himself for being able to see it in this man and having missed it in his once mentor. The surge of foulness was overpowering, and Anakin can see his comrades falling, they were outnumbered but his stubbornness refused to let go of that damn rope, slamming at the darkness in an attempt to push them back down to their end.

He would not let them get to the light, he refused to.

The sky above them is suddenly blotted out with an array of ships, enemies or reinforcements Anakin didn’t know as he was thrown to the ground. A look of worry actually crossed the ex-chancellors face as Bogan continued to crash his lightsaber down at Anakin’s prone form.

“Stop! He is of no use to me dead,” the man pleaded, and it was that sentence alone that made Anakin realize the man who’d corrupted him and tried to take his wife and had taken his family away from him was an idiot. An idiot under the belief he had the living embodiment of the darkside on a leash as one of his lackeys. A mortal man foolish enough to believe he could rival the gods.

Bogan reared back, snarling with his two sabers ready to strike down with the force of his fury, roaring, “Where are they!” 

“Here,” a voice Anakin longed to hear replied in turn, standing over him, her twin sabers keeping back the red and purple blades that would have likely torn through his blue with that final hit. The Bogan stepped back almost as if Ahsoka had struck him, if they had been able to see his face they’d have seen his yellow eyes widen.

“Oh, you are nothing that I expected, but everything I could have hoped for and more,” reverence is what clung to what Ahsoka knew to be a backhanded compliment as she pushed both Palpatine and Bogan back, and Bogan willingly let her, watching her intently from behind his mask as Anakin pulled himself up off the ground behind her.

Anakin let out an angered growl at the comment, looking between both Ahsoka and Palpatine as the older man was getting ready for an attack. Ahsoka was taller, still barely the height of his shoulder, and her lekku were longer, her apparel made her a fitting warrior and he couldn’t be more grateful to be at her side, the loving smile and expressive eyes she gave him in return let him know they were okay and she was just as grateful to see him.

Giving him a nod, Anakin took his cue and began his fight with his abuser. Ahsoka twirling her sabers even though she knew their fight wasn’t the same as the war raging around them. The Bogan’s body language alone was enough to let her know he knew it too, so their swings as they fought consisted of easily blocked blows and a conversation Ahsoka knew she couldn’t imagine having outside of a battle.

“You know this war is wrong, the Jedi and Sith are both fighting for supremacy, can’t you tell?” she could, and her annoyed crease of her brow and surge of force behind her next hit even had the colors of her lightsabers changing. A matching blue to her masters, every stinging clash making a lightshow as they altered between white and blue. It was answer enough for him.

“You know there’s a way we can bring actual balance to the force. We could cut the middleman out entirely, we alone could do it Ashla,” Bogan explained, pleaded, likely salivating beneath the mask.

“A dyad,” he breathily crooned, his fingers crooking, beckoning her closer, “A marriage.”

“No,” the teen shouted, feeling sick at even the suggestion, she didn’t know what was worse: Killing Anakin or marrying the dark bastard who’d helped Palpatine get this far. The tug of war resumed, and with all the power in her grasp, Ahsoka felt tears spilling when the rope burned her hands. She was fighting on autopilot, her theory bursting through her temples. A new piece to it sneaking up on her like a sudden wave.

_If one of them ceased to exist, would Anakin take their place...and if they both perished, would the chosen one truly become the balance of them both?_

They’d only just reunited Ahsoka dismayed as the losing battle around her forced her now to go for the kill. Bogan didn’t meet her ferocity, fully on the defensive and failing to figure out what she was doing. He only understood when a blue saber shot through his chest and her reversed grip held the white one through hers.

“No!” an elongated scream broke through the air, Anakin reaching out perilously towards his impaled padawan.

“May the force be with you Skyguy,” the togruta rasped, tears slipping down her orange cheeks before the force rippled throughout the galaxy, both the Ashla and Bogan disappearing, leaving nothing but four glowing sabers.

Every clone, Sith, Jedi, and warrior stopped; clueless of how to proceed until Anakin ascended to the most powerful being of all. In seconds the sith crumbled and the misguided Jedi were plagued by their blindness to the darkside. As further punishment he reaped most the members of the council of their midichlorians all together.

May the force be with him indeed.

* * *

Her ghost haunted him with a smile, apologies and assurances readily given.

“How did you know this would happen? How did you know this was really how to bring balance to the force?” Anakin questioned, at the moment alone in the council room beside for her as the Jedi, Padme, and Senate worked to undo the corruption written throughout their democracy.

There was no longer a rope.

“You were teetering on the edge for so long, and you understood both sides even when they tried to raise you not to. I really didn’t know how, or had a real reason for knowing other than I just did. I know you would have done the same,” He didn't think he would.

The girl smiled, walking over to his chair where a box sat, her sabers inside. A brief memory of Anakin and her bantering and laughing as he’d helped her construct them when she was all clear from the medics after her stint at the Ilum cave.

“Plus this way you fulfilled both prophecies,” and he really did. He’d destroyed the sith and brought balance to the force. 

“I think most of that was you snips,”

“Yeah, well I guess I can’t give you all the credit,”

Anakin’s comm blinked, an incoming call from his former master. The ex-deity smiled sadly, knowing they’d have to speak again another time.

“I’ll see you around Skyguy,” reaching around to give her brother a hug, Anakin waited for her to disappear before he answered the comm. He had things to do, and luckily he was never actually alone, Ahsoka’s light checked in with him near constantly.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry about the ending, i honestly couldn't see it going down any other way
> 
> snap: allisonw1122  
> tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> insta: webtrinsic


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